Receiver/Subwoofer Crossover Setting? (1 Viewer)

[Anthony AC]

Ok here goes with my 2nd post to this forum, i.e. I'm new at this. Please bear with me if I've got some terms wrong.

My question is in regard to what the crossover on your sub actually does? I have a Sherwood 6106 and Fidek make sub (I know low end stuff). From memory the sub has adjustable crossover from ~40 - 120 Hz. From what I've read from similar questions is that if my receiver is fixed at say 80 Hz (guessing) does that mean that if I set the sub at above this then in effect it isn't really doing anything? However if I do just that I do notice/feel more "sound", i.e. amplitude of the cone is increased greatly (in fact the difference is significant say with comparison at ~90 and 120 Hz), so is it actually doing something then or why then is it?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Myron]

I'm not 100% comfortable here, but I'll give you my impressions for what they're worth, which might be nothing.

I think the receiver crossover takes for general 5x signals and tries to send all frequencies lower than that set frequency to the sub. However it doesn't apply to the .1 signals generated by the CD or DVD. These are sent directly to the sub. Its my impression that you can set on the sub, the crossover frequency here and if wired correctly, any frequencies over the sub's crossover frequency are sent back or to where the return wiring goes. At least that is what I seem to remember on my subs. I suspect that if even if you haven't added the extra wiring, that if you set the subs crossover higher, that only those frequencies (and harmonics) will be passed thru to the sub. Thus if its set at 100hz and the receiver is at 80 hz, then any signals on the .l line that are between 80 and 100hz will be adding to any coming from the 5x crossover. So you should get a little more volume.

Again, this is just my impressions and facts may be totally different.

 

[Anthony AC]

Thanks Myron. To add a little I'm using the sub pre-out on the receiver, hence are you saying that any ".1" data on the DVD may actually contain info above say the receiver crossover and then this is passed to the sub using the ".1" channel. Hence should you always set the crossover setting as high as possible to get "all the sound"? Or is this question more involved and it also requires knowledge of your front mains (which are towers with 8" woofers incidentally, therefore I'm saying their set to large, is this right?) and what frequencies they may reproduce?

You know that feeling you get when you don't quite know what you're talking about? I got it.

 

[Gordon Groff]

Piggy-Backing on Anthony's question, does one need a crossover on the sub? If your reciever can be set for a certain crossover point for the sub-out, why another one on the sub?

My reason for asking is that I'd like to run my own power amp into a sub from the receiver's sub preamp out w/out another crossover ahead of it.

Does this make sense?

Thanks,
Gordon

 

[Phil Iturralde]

Generally, here's the process ...
AV Receiver
1) Set all speakers = Small
.... (a) AV Receiver will handle the x-over to your sub @ it's designated design, in your case 80 Hz.
........(1) My Yamaha = 90 Hz fixed x-over.
Sub
1) First option, turn-off the sub's internal x-over
.... (a) If you can't, dial the x-over to MAX setting*
*This removes any posibililty of two x-over's (AV REC vs. Sub) interferring with the blending between your speakers and sub.
HT Magazine documented that the two x-over's (AV REC vs. Sub) blend was about -10 dB down when the sub's x-over was near the AV Receiver's. MAXing out the sub's x-over fixed that dip and the blend was within 3 dB!!
Phil